Every week in “4-Down Territory,” Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar and Luke Easterling of Bucs Wire and Draft Wire go over the things you need to know about, and the things you need to watch, in the NFL right now. With one week left in the regular season, there was a lot to cover.
(Note: We taped this show before Damar Hamlin’s Monday night injury. Please visit Touchdown Wire for our continued coverage).
This week, Doug and Luke discuss:
00:00 – Can Dak Prescott fix the turnover issues before the playoffs for the Cowboys?
05:02 – Did you see a different C.J. Stroud against college football’s best defense?
09:38 – What does this teach us about getting it right with the game’s most important position?
17:09 – Which eliminated team has the best chance of making the playoffs next season?
You can watch this week’s episode of “4-Down Territory” right here.
Dak Prescott's interception issues.
The good news for the Dallas Cowboys is that they are 12-4, and they’ve won 12 games for the second year in a row since 1994-1995, when they won their last Super Bowl. The bad news is Dak Prescott in December. In that month of five games, Prescott completed 70% of his passes and threw 12 touchdown passes, but he also threw eight interceptions, and multiple interceptions in three of those five games This obviously can’t continue in the postseason, or the Cowboys will likely be an easy out. What’s going on with Dak, and how can this be corrected before the playoffs come around?
Doug: I think there are multiple issues. When you study a quarterback’s interceptions, you can’t just look at the numbers – you have to watch each one, and they’ll tell you different stories. There were multiple times in December when Prescott’s receivers let him down by basically deflecting his passes to defenders. There are also times when Prescott has not been on the same page with his receivers, and that shows up. Also, pressure seems to be affecting him differently. He was absolutely thermonuclear against the blitz in 2021. This season, not so much. Maybe he’s trying to do too much with a receiver group that does need reinforcements, and behind an offensive line that has struggled with injuries of late. Dak needs to go back to what he really is – a guy who can make every throw, and one of the NFL’s best pre-snap processors, when he stays and plays within himself.
Luke: Just like with most things, it’s never just one thing, right? Dak’s had some bad misses, but his receivers have had theirs, as well. When you see a bunch of both, you start trying to figure out who’s at fault most often, but sometimes the ball just bounces the wrong way a bunch of times. I do think that maybe he’s just pressing a bit too much, and hopefully he’s able to just relax and realize that with that defense and ground game, he doesn’t have to win every game on his own playing hero ball through the air.
C.J. Stroud's breakout game.
Given the performance Bryce Young put up in the Sugar Bowl, in which he completed 15 of 21 passes for 321 yards, five touchdowns, and no interceptions in a 45-20 win over Kansas State, it’s clear that Young has solidified his position as the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft. You might as well start sewing the Texans jersey for him now. But I’m more interested in what C.J. Stroud showed in Ohio State’s narrow loss to Georgia in the CFP Semifinal. The word on Stroud all along has been that he’s fine with a clean pocket and in structure, but if he has to do things with second-reaction ability after the play breaks down, things fall apart. Did you see something different against college football’s best defense?
Doug: I did, and this especially showed up on Stroud’s two touchdown passes to Marvin Harrison Jr. in the first half. On both of those touchdowns, Stroud was rocked off his spot, he had to escape the pocket, and he had to time things up with his best receiver with improvisation and decisiveness. I have been very impressed with Stroud from the pocket, which is why I say that I see some Philip Rivers there. But these and other plays against Georgia’s amazing defense, where he had to do things on his own and outside of structure? That’s a key component of modern quarterbacking in the NFL, and I think NFL decision-makers will come away from a closer look at that game with an elevated opinion of what Stroud can do at the next level. I certainly did. Stroud may have been on the losing end of that 42-41 craziness, but in the end, he won big in the eyes of the NFL.
Luke: Stroud definitely shut up a lot of doubters Saturday night. He showed every single trait you want to see from a franchise quarterback prospect, and he did it against the most dominant defense in the country. I do fear that those same doubters will do exactly what they did to Justin Fields after he dominated Clemson in the CFP semifinals a few years ago, and keep parroting the same stupid narratives, but Stroud absolutely put himself in the conversation for the No. 1 overall pick with that performance, and I love Bryce Young.
Why quarterback evaluation is so difficult.
On Sunday, the 49ers and Raiders battled to a 37-34 overtime win for San Francisco. In that game, Jarret Stidham, a fourth-round pick of the Patriots in 2019, roasted the NFL’s best defense in his first NFL start with 23 completions in 34 attempts for 365 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 108.1. 49ers rookie Brock “Mr. Irrelevant” Purdy continued his hot streak by completing 22 of 35 passes for 284 yards, two touchdowns, one intersection, and a passer rating of 95.4.
Meanwhile, the Jets were eliminated from the postseason in large part because 2021 second-overall pick Zach Wilson has been perhaps the biggest quarterback bust of his era. We are both about to analyze quarterbacks in the upcoming draft class at a forensic level. What do things like these teach us about getting it right (or not) with the game’s most important position?
Doug: We seem to say this every year, but with quarterbacks, it really is about the intangibles – the things you can’t measure. Which may be the primary reason the position is so hard to evaluate. Both Stidham and Purdy have clearly made the most of their opportunities with coaches and trainers to maximize their abilities, however limited they may be. Meanwhile, a guy like Zach Wilson, with all the talent in the world to make incredible off-script plays, doesn’t have the toughness and fortitude to put it all together. With quarterbacks, it’s about so much more than velocity, mechanics, accuracy… the entire physical toolbox. How authentic are you as a leader? Are you tough enough to eliminate your mistakes in the moment and learn from them at the same time? Are you ready to take all the adversity on your shoulders even if it isn’t your fault? All of my misses on players and prospects seem to center around my inability to track those intangibles, and never more so than when it comes to quarterbacks.
Luke: You don’t know what you don’t know, and just like you said, the most important traits with quarterbacks especially are the ones that aren’t necessarily quantifiable in the same way 40 times and hand sizes are. At the same time, fit matters just as much as anything else, and the marriage of a scheme/coaching staff with the quarterback can make or break a young passer just getting to the next level. I don’t know that the league will ever find a formula that will work, so obviously we won’t, because they get way more information than we do. I think the best any of us can do is try to find the right fit, instead of just getting enamored with particular physical traits.
Which teams will break the playoff wall in 2023?
Now that the Ravens, Giants, Vikings, and Chargers have punched their tickets to the playoffs, it’s the 33rd straight season in which at least four NFL teams that didn’t make the postseason the year before make it in the subsequent season. A little hope for those teams that have already been eliminated. Of those eliminated teams, which one do you think has the best chance of making the playoffs by the end of the 2023 regular season?
Doug: I’ll go with the Jets here. General manager Joe Douglas has done a great job in the draft and in free agency apart from the Zach Wilson mistake. I think Robert Saleh is the right head coach. The staff is fine. They’re loaded at just about every position. Right now, they are the proverbial team that is only a quarterback away, and if they can get that right, they have everything else to mount a serious threat to the enfire AFC. As we just detailed, it’s tough to get that position right when you haven’t, but the current Jets organization has done enough right to have me thinking they’ll figure this out in the offseason.
Luke: I’m going to go out on a limb here and take the Chicago Bears. They can’t make the entire plane out of Justin Fields, unfortunately, but they have an aircraft carrier full of cap space next year, and some premium draft picks to help build around him. They need help in the trenches on both sides of the ball, and Fields needs another difference-maker at wide receiver, but they have the resources to fix all of their biggest problems this offseason. Fields should take a massive leap next year with a better supporting cast, and that should terrify the rest of the league.
